Records of the Students for a Libertarian Society (SLS) and of its local chapters in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1979-1980), Madison, Wisconsin (1981-1984), and Evanston, Illinois (1983-1984) created and collected by an active member, David Beito. SLS is a group formed in April, 1979, to move college students toward the Libertarian Party movement, with which it is associated. Included are local and national SLS administrative records, correspondence, convention records, flyers, opinion papers, literature, and clippings primarily relating to anti-draft and anti-tax activities and to a proposed anti-pornography ordinance in Madison. Also present is some material on related anti-draft organizations in Minnesota with whom the SLS collaborated and some personal papers of Beito including campaign literature from his unsuccessful 1982 congressional campaign.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00739

These papers were created and collected by David Beito, born in Minneapolis on March 8, 1956. As an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (history degree, 1980), he was a leader of the campus chapter of Students for a Libertarian Society (SLS), an organization espousing individual freedom and limited government. Formed in April 1979 to encourage the involvement of students across the country in the libertarian political movement, SLS was associated with the Libertarian Party. Libertarians were eager to engage the student population in their cause because they considered intellectuals to hold a pivotal role in the building of a successful political movement.

SLS considered its politics to be neither left wing nor right wing. Instead it worked with liberals and radicals on issues such as protesting the draft and with conservatives on issues relating to taxation and government spending. SLS chapters eventually formed on approximately sixty campuses.

The University of Minnesota chapter (SLS-Minn.) formed quickly. In December 1979, Beito, along with John Elmer, applied for formal SLS affiliation for the Minnesota chapter. However, the group had apparently been active before that date. A Minneapolis anti-draft rally held May 1, 1979, was organized by SLS. Anti-draft activism became the group's primary focus through these years (1979-1981). SLS-Minn. shared the same office with two other student anti-draft groups: Minnesotans Against Selective Service (M.A.S.S.) and Northland Resistance Committee (NRC), a Minnesota chapter of the National Resistance Committee. SLS-Minn. also became the first student group member of the Minnesota Committee Against Registration and Draft (MCARD), a coalition organized in the spring of 1979 by the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union (MCLU), the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

In addition to his leadership role in SLS-Minn., Beito apparently was an active member of M.A.S.S., NRC, and MCARD. Other groups with whom Beito or SLS-Minn. had some contact include: Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Veterans National Task Force, Fellowship of Reconciliation (F.O.R.), and Twin Cities Stop the Draft Committee (TCSDC). Other key figures in SLS-Minn. include John Elmer, Todd Olson, Tom Coughlin, and Michael Hardy.

Elmer and Olson were also active in the Young Libertarian Alliance (YLA), another student group associated with the Libertarian Party. YLA had formed at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis at least by July 1978, but it is not clear how YLA was related to SLS.

In January 1981, Beito entered the University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate program in history where he completed his M.A. in December 1982 and his Ph.D. in December 1986. While in Madison, he continued his involvement in SLS and several other issue-oriented political groups. For the years 1981 to 1983, these files reflect a concern for anti-draft activities and various tax
issues, including the privatization of government-owned schools, war tax resistance, and the flat tax. SLS-Madison was active in sponsoring debates, lectures, and rallies. Other prominent members included Dean Wingarten, Chris Martin, Robert Kokott, and Walter Morris.

In 1982, Beito and other libertarians ran for positions in the student government under the guise of the Campus Anarchy Party. In 1982, Beito also campaigned unsuccessfully for a seat in the U.S. Congress from Wisconsin's Second District.

During these years, Beito became more involved in regional and national SLS activities. He served as SLS midwest coordinator from 1980 to 1981 and was chair of the national SLS Student Board from 1981 to 1982. In July 1982 the SLS national convention was held in Madison. National SLS directors during these years include: Jeff Friedman, 1981; Kathleen Jacob-Richman, 1982; and Chris Gunderson, 1983.

In 1984, Madison SLS became heavily involved in opposition to a proposed city ordinance to control pornography. The ordinance was modelled after ordinances introduced earlier in Minneapolis and Indianapolis. Madison's Task Force on Prostitution and Pornography (TOPP) was among the local groups supporting the ordinance; the Committee Against Censorship, of which Beito was a member, was among the local groups opposed to the ordinance. The ordinance was not successful.

Scope and Content Note

The collection consists of David Beito's own papers, plus material he solicited from a number of individuals formerly active in SLS. The records reflect activities at the national level, Beito's involvement in two SLS local chapters -- Minneapolis and then Madison, and actions at other Midwestern campuses. These files date from 1978 to 1984 but are quite fragmentary. A large portion of the collection consists of political flyers, press releases, position papers, and newspaper clippings. Correspondence, financial records, and organizational records are incomplete. The collection may be best used as evidence of the issues of concern to SLS, libertarian ideology regarding those issues, the events SLS organized, and the organizations with whom SLS worked. This collection provides important insights into Madison draft resistance activities and student politics in general in the early 1980's.

The NATIONAL SLS RECORDS include some significant organizational records, such as the 1980-1981 annual report; the constitution adopted at the National Convention in New York City in August 1981; and the SLS organizing manual by Kathleen Jacob-Richman. The correspondence files are good on the interaction between leaders across the country, communication with the SLS local chapters, and the responsibilities of the national office, such as supervision of the content and format of the SLS periodical, Liberty. These files reveal some of the tension between Kathleen Jacob-Richman and Chris Gunderson over the National Director's position. Major correspondents include: Jacob-Richman, Gunderson, Jeff Friedman, Milton Mueller, and Eric Garris, the 1979 National Field Coordinator.

The convention records are spotty, containing advertisements and programs for the conventions, campaign literature of candidates for SLS national director, and scattered material about matters discussed. at the meetings, such as the constitution and the Student Board. A history of the SLS constitution by Scott Olmsted is included.

The Student Board records are likewise quite incomplete, consisting mainly of notes and correspondence. They cover the periods 1980-1981, when Chris Sciabarra was chair, and 1981-1982, when Beito was chair. The national SLS records also contain small folders of press releases and leaflets regarding SLS activities.

Original CHAPTER FILES maintained at the local level are present for these campuses: Minneapolis, Madison, and Northwestern. The bulk of the Minnesota SLS Records are from two years, 1979 through 1980. Included are some materials about the formation and functioning of the group, such as the application for formal affiliation with SLS, registration as a university student group, a 1979 organizing report, a 1980 constitution, and information on people interested or involved in SLS. The correspondence file is limited, but does provide information on some activities that SLS coordinated in conjunction with the Minneapolis gay and lesbian community, commentary on President Reagan's election, and a report on the status of SLS. The literature file contains a few flyers about local rent control, anti-racism, and anti-war beliefs. Financial records include an initial statement from April 1979 and detailed expenditure and income ledgers only for the period from February to June, 1980. Records of the Young Libertarian Alliance (YLA) include a draft of a constitution, correspondence, and flyers.

The Minnesota anti-draft files include correspondence, opinion papers, press releases, clippings, flyers and literature from SLS-Minn. and numerous anti-draft organizations, including specifically the Minnesota Committee Against Registration and Draft (MCARD), and the Northland Resistance Committee and National Resistance Committee (NRC). Other groups represented in the general anti-draft files are Minnesotans Against Selective Service (M.A.S.S.) and the Twin Cities Stop the Draft Committee. These files document the major concern of SLS-Minn. during these years and provide useful information on how different political groups worked together on a single issue.

The Madison SLS Records are very similar to the Minneapolis records. The organizational file contains a copy of the 1980-81 registration as a university student organization, agendas, and records of people involved In SLS, including phone trees, mailing lists, lists of contributors, and sign-up sheets. SLS activities are reflected in the general correspondence, press releases, clippings from local newspapers, and literature. As with the Minneapolis records, the financial file is meager, containing only bank statements and some receipts.

The Madison files reflect more diverse SLS activities. The issues file contains correspondence, opinion papers, press releases, flyers, and clippings about schools tax support, the Campus Anarchy Party campaigns, Beito's campaign for U.S. Congress, anti-draft activities, the idea of a flat tax, war tax resistance, and reaction to the anti-pornography movement. Of note are an SLS-Madison position paper about the privatization of public schools, questionnaires from the League of Women Voters and the Wisconsin Nuclear Freeze Campaign and correspondence with incumbent Robert Kastenmeier in the Beito for Congress file, and comments on Beito's seminar paper on the history of war tax resistance and correspondence with the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign in the flat tax and war tax resistance files. The anti-draft material includes the 1981 statement of purpose of the Ad Hoc Committee to Stop Militarism and the Draft, a feminist anti-militarism group; material regarding Gillam Kerley's refusal to register; and organizing documents of the Madison Draft Resistance Coalition, a campus group organized by Kerley. The anti-pornography file includes opinion papers of the Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce (FACT) and copies of proposed ordinances in Minneapolis and Madison.

Also included is a small file from the Northwestern University SLS chapter in Evanston, Illinois, covering the years 1983 to 1984, preserved by chapter president Lee Cronk. Included are Cronk's correspondence, some organizing and campaign literature, lists of members and interested persons, literature, and limited financial records.

There are four MISCELLANEOUS FILES. First is a small file of Libertarian Party material, including a position paper and a brochure for the 1981 LP convention, which Beito attended. Second is the correspondence, 1984-1985, between Beito, Friedman, and Mueller, concerning the donation of these papers to the Historical Society. Third and fourth are photographs and a poster of anti-draft demonstrations in Minneapolis and Madison, circa 1980.

Related Material

Related sources held by the Historical Society Library include journals and publications of various organizations represented in the collection. The University of Wisconsin's Memorial Library holds Beito's Ph.D. thesis: “Striking against the State: Taxpayer Revolts during the American Great Depression, 1930-1935.”